Mostly About Organized Crime

08/30/2009

Steven Thomas, the former business manager of Laborers Union Local 500, was given five years probation by a federal judge in Toledo, OH following his conviction last May "to one count of labor union embezzlement for using union money throughout 2004 to pay for visits to strip clubs, where he spent nearly $18,000" as reported by Erica Blake for The Toledo Blade:

Questionable spending by Local 500 officials first came to light in 2006 when The Blade reported a series of stories that detailed the salaries of top union leaders and their spending at area strip clubs. The federal charges against Thomas and a fellow former union officer, Thomas Leonard, followed a lengthy U.S. Department of Labor investigation. In 2006, the parent organization of Local 500, Laborers International Union of North America, filed disciplinary charges against the men and removed them from office. Criminal indictments were filed against both men July 23, 2008. * * * Thomas is the second union official to be sentenced for union embezzlement. Mr. Leonard, the union's former recording secretary, was sentenced in January to one year of probation after pleading guilty Oct. 2 to using a credit card given to him by the construction union to pay $4,386 in expenses at the two strip clubs.

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07/17/2009

Nicholas Manocchio, a former director of the Laborers' New England Region Organizing Fund, has agreed to plead guilty "to one count of labor conspiracy for accepting cash and other items of value, including liquor, rental cars and gift certificates from an undercover FBI agent posing as a contractor looking for business in Rhode Island" as reported by Katie Mulvaney for the Providence Journal:

Manocchio, 56, of Cranston, is the last of three men to agree to plead guilty to charges resulting from the undercover FBI operation. Gerald Diodati, a Coventry contractor and Seekonk resident, signed an agreement in June and is scheduled to enter the plea July 31 before U.S. District Judge William E. Smith. A third defendant, Harold L. Tillinghast Jr., two weeks earlier pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge and agreed to cooperate with the government.

Mulvaney further reports that "Manocchio has deep criminal bloodlines":

He is the nephew of Luigi "Baby Shacks" Manocchio, described by the authorities as the longtime head of the Patriarca crime family. In 1980, Nicholas Manocchio, then a student in microbiology at the University of Washington, was arrested for killing Richard Fournier, 24, outside a restaurant on Mineral Spring Avenue in North Providence. He was convicted of intentional manslaughter and conspiracy to commit assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Records from the Adult Correctional Institutions show that Manocchio served about 7 years of a 12-year sentence. Upon his release, he ran a sports memorabilia store in Cranston before he landed a job with the Laborers' Union.

06/11/2009

Gerald Diodati, a Rhode Island contractor indicted for his role in an alleged scheme to provide kickbacks to officials with the Laborers' International Union of North America of which reputed Patriarca capo Matthew L. Guglielmetti Jr. is a member, has entered an agreement with federal prosecutors by which he will plead guilty according to a report by W. Zachary Malinowski for the Providence Journal. One of those LIUNA officials, Harold L. Tillinghast Jr., previously pleaded guilty, and now the only remaining defendant in the case is Nicholas Manocchio who was Tillinghast's boss. In reporting on Tillinghast's guilty plea last month Malinowski wrote:

Tillinghast is the son of the late Harold L. Tillinghast Sr., and the nephew of Gerald M. "Gerry" Tillinghast, two mobsters who were convicted of killing loan shark George Basmajian in the 1970s. Manocchio also served time in prison for killing a college student outside a restaurant in North Providence in 1980. He is the nephew of Luigi "Baby Shacks" Manocchio, the longtime head of the Patriarca crime family.

05/28/2009

Harold L. Tillinghast Jr., a former organizer with the Laborers' International Union of North America of which Patriarca capo Matthew L. Guglielmetti Jr. is a member, has pleaded guilty to labor racketeering and "is cooperating with the government in its prosecution of two other men in a construction kickback scheme" according to an article by W. Zachary Malinowski for the Providence Journal:

Assistant U.S. Attorney Vincent J. Falvo Jr., a prosecutor with the Department of Justice in Washington, asked Smith to move the sentencing to mid-September so Tillinghast could first testify in the trial of his former codefendants, Nicholas Manocchio and Gerald Diodati. They are scheduled to stand trial in early September. * * * Manocchio and Diodati have both entered not guilty pleas to charges of conspiracy, and aiding and abetting. Manocchio was Tillinghast's boss at the laborers' union office on South Main Street in Providence.

Quite the cast of characters, and Malinowski writes:

Tillinghast is the son of the late Harold L. Tillinghast Sr., and the nephew of Gerald M. "Gerry" Tillinghast, two mobsters who were convicted of killing loan shark George Basmajian in the 1970s. Manocchio also served time in prison for killing a college student outside a restaurant in North Providence in 1980. He is the nephew of Luigi "Baby Shacks" Manocchio, the longtime head of the Patriarca crime family.